Oil Lamps
by pigeons
Summary: Feliks' feet hit the ground over and over, streams of rain getting wider, running under his feet, between his toes. Another crack of thunder struck, this time closer. LietPol drabble. Poland is scared of Thunder Storms.


Hello! I've finished my NaNoWriMo project. I ended up with 57,600 words! I won the challenge uwu

I promise next will come the final chapter of "The Beast" but soon I'm going to start a new project. This is just a drabble to help recover from the grueling nano challenge... my inspiration has been wounded...!_ (It's unusual for me to write something so... tame... I'm usually one for depression and dark topics hahaha)_

Please review! It makes me so happy to see new reviews, i check every day.

See you soon, hopefully!

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It was about seven o' clock at night when the first drops of rain started to hit, and Feliks was a little concerned because his mother did say there might be a storm brewing. She always knew because the air would grow moist and she'd look over the fields of gold wheat, the creaking wood of the porch shaking under her small black shoes.

He felt his own brow crease and he wished he had some more of the pierogi they ate at dinner, but it was gone. He wished Toris was staying at his house that night, because with the storm apparent, he wasn't very happy. The summer was hot and humid and Toris found it better to just stay at his own house—not far. Feliks had to stay with all his many siblings in their spindling and small farmhouse painted a scratched-off baby blue. Toris' place kept cooler in the heat and it didn't smell as much like black pepper and old chess boards.

At eight o' clock, Feliks was sitting out on the porch, and the rocking chairs were starting to squeal against the worn plain floorboards, and the door that was swollen in its frame was reverberating with the wind that had picked up. Rain had lightly started to fall. It made a soft whisper then, hitting against the sigh of the tree in the yard, and hissing when it hit the gravel pathways and the little dirt road like a harmony. And it was starting to get darker out, as well; the country sky was lit by tiny pricks of light, a gradient of dark ocean tones gliding from the angry looking clouds. The clouds were just dark shapes; they were imposing, and Feliks _really_ wished Toris were here now.

He didn't like this. Storms only came around once in a while, but when they showed up, it was a bone-shaking experience, and he'd rather hide under his thinning blankets upstairs in the farmhouse. But this time he knew what he should do.

His mother would be mad at him, of course, but he was going to go anyways. There was a rubber band around his wrist that he snapped twice and pulled off to tie up his blonde hair—he looped it around twice and didn't pull the third one through all the way, but whatever. It was messy and greasy anyways, and it wouldn't be seen by anybody anyways, and he stood from the place where his legs, smudged with dirt, were dangling off the front porch. There was a smudge of dirt under one green eye as well, but he didn't know that.

He looked out over the troubled sky, over the tree line across the wheat field. The color of the sky always seemed reflected by the golden crop, even now, while it was just light enough to see the color but just dark enough for the stars to peek through. Now the stalks were swaying in the weather, dancing like the wind was too.

It was nine o' clock, or rather quarter to nine, when Feliks heard the first crack of thunder in the distance. Now dark, dark enough to only see by the faint blue on the low horizon and the candles that were covered on the porches—the uncovered ones had been whipped out by the wind. The booming sound made him jump so very high—and his feet hit the wet soil, and that was it. He was running, all a sudden, down the dirt street. The rain had escalated into a downpour, with the whipping winds and the threat of lightning, and Feliks was scared. He hated the thunder.

Toris could fix this.

His little house was at the end of the road—beyond there was only his family's golden fields. But in the other direction were several more houses—each with their own children. He knew all of them, having met them to play games once or twice, but none were exactly his age except Toris, really. There were a few others—ones that stayed with them while he picked at the red flowers on his nice shirt and they all adventured under the hot melting sun when he was fourteen and needed a miracle.

Each house had many children to help with their harvest, but he was only friends with a few kids. The next one over was little Raivis Galante's. He was a timid boy, but his house always smelled like nice expensive candles and 100 proof. His folks were rather successful, and Raivis was happy. Past that place was the Von Bock's home—is that how you spell it? The charming Eduard Von Bock lived there, and he filled his room with books that felt like real leather and had an air of nice perfume. Toris really liked him, but he was always writing letters to friends far away and that left him with very little time to sit out on rickety pollen-coated porches in the humid summer days.

Feliks' feet hit the ground over and over, streams of rain getting wider, running under his feet, between his toes.

Another crack of thunder struck, this time closer.

Feliks cried out, the boom scaring him out of his wits. The trees along the dirt road were shuddering, their green leaves faded out in the swaying wind and rain. The bright and sunny places he spent his dusty afternoons were filling with thunder and fear.

He came up, finally, to Toris' house. By now his emerald eyes were wide and his hair was falling everywhere and his feet were muddy up to the ankles, but he was so close now that it didn't matter. He just didn't like the—

Thunder, again. So close after the previous one, he jumped high into the air and took the last bounding strides up the porch steps of Toris' house.

The brunet's place wasn't quite as big as Feliks', but it kept cool in summer and warm in winter, and it was well furnished—with bookcases and pictures framed on the walls, and little ornate blue candy dishes that never had anything in them except black licorice. There were patterned wallpapers that his mother had put up, and the exterior was painted a studious green—green like the trees, dark like Toris' eyes. It was almost Feliks' favorite color, following the pink of his favorite dress shirt—the one he only wore on special occasions, that was so stiff from starch it felt plastic.

As soon as Feliks' foot hit the doorstep, the paneled wood was already opening before him—revealing his closest friend already there to greet him.

"Toris!" He squeaked in surprise.

The brunet offered a knowing smile. "Come inside, before the thunder strikes again." As if on cue, the sky rumbled, weaker this time, but still loud enough for Feliks to run headlong into Toris' arms. The taller only smiled a bit wider and reached around him to close the door.

"Wipe your feet off. You didn't wear any shoes, even though it's raining…" Feliks did just that, taking a dirty rag from its position on the floor and using it to take the mud off his ankles and feet. He dropped it back where it went.

"I knew you'd get scared, so I waited for you..." Toris explained. Feliks only wrapped his skinny arms around him, his heart pounding. "…and you do look scared."

"You know I totally hate the thunder, Toris. I always have." Feliks' gaze looked annoyed, but Toris could see that under that he really was tense and unnerved.

"Come on; let's go up to my room. The storm will only get worse."

Strong winds were blowing the rain harder and harder into the side of the house, and as they climbed the creaky steps, Feliks held onto Toris' hand like it would save him.

There were several doors at the top of the stairs—five doors, two on each side and one at the end. The one immediately to the right was Toris' room, but Feliks could see the brown-haired head of one of his siblings duck out of the left one. Green eyes met his own, but soon they leaned back into the door. They weren't there for long, anyways, and Feliks stumbled into Toris' room and sitting on his bed as soon as he could be, really.

Toris kind of laughed, but soon he was settling into the bed leaning against the wall with him, and had slung his arm around Feliks' shoulders. Another stroke of lightning outside flashed through the slats of the shutters that cracked and rattled in Toris' window.

Feliks flinched, the shudder passing from his body like an electric shock, strong as the lightning, into Toris. He buried his face in Toris' chest, his bones shaking and breath hitching. Toris petted his hair, listening to the rain, wondering how it could calm him but frighten Feliks. He started to work on getting the rubber band out of the blond hair, combing his fingers through it until it looked remotely decent, and putting it into a neater ponytail, more like the studious short one that rested against the back of his neck.

Feliks seemed, after a while of clinging to him while the storm kept up, like he'd fallen asleep; however, this wasn't true. Toris could hear his muffled voice; "You should read to me. I don't want to hear any of it." He meant the thunder, of course.

Toris wasn't really surprised, but he hadn't expected Feliks to just say it like that. He knew it would help calm him down, so he just grabbed the closest book—it'd been sitting on the scuffed bedside table, bound in some old leather and tacky glued where the spine peeled away in the corner. The room was almost completely dark—an oil lamp burned on the same table, and another at the other side of the room by the shuttered window.

He opened the book—Little Women—and started to read.

They lay there, Feliks listening to the accents and the highlights of Toris' voice, trying not to pay attention to the booming of the storm outside, trying not to worry about how Feliks' mother was probably looking for him, worried sick, but she wouldn't do anything. It didn't matter now.

He had his head resting in the crook of Toris' neck, strewn across him, and the book was held on his lap as Toris read. After a while, he really did fall asleep. With the warmth, the safety and the love that hung around just like the humidity and Raivis' candles, Toris drifted off too, losing his page as his eyes slipped shut.


End file.
